By Kaylyn Pageot

The Student Honors Organization (SHO) has brought back their iconic Prof. Talk, but this time SHO is hosting them with a slight twist. A Prof. Talk is when a professor or a professional comes to talk to students about their specific fields.

Recently, Main Center hosted its second Prof. Talk of this semester. Dr. Altan Atamer, an Assistant Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Department of Political Science and Legal Administration, spoke on how identities are shaped by power around us by explaining Turkey’s struggles against the West and going into in-depth detail about Kemalism.

SHO has done a great job of getting students to these events by not only promoting it to Honors students but also promoting it on campus TVs and the GC newsletter Leo’s Line Up.

“Prof. Talks have been a tradition of SHO since before my time in the Honors program,” said SHO President Anna Fraizer. “It has been their staple event, what they are known for.”

Prof. Talks at GC are not something new and are a fundamental part of our culture. At Greensboro College, students are prepared to graduate ready for anything and Prof. Talks can help these students by giving a different way to learn about subjects they are interested in outside of the classrooms.

“I think SHO has helped broaden student knowledge to things outside of their major or core classes,” said SHO Vice President Shaniah Taylor. “With our most recent Prof. Talk given by Professor Atamer, people could learn about something that likely would not have come up in their day-to-day life. With Prof. Talks, we want to focus on broadening people’s perspectives and giving staff opportunities to share theirs.”

Prof. Talks were originally held by professors, but SHO has found a new approach that has caused a greater impact to the way students can learn.

The first Prof. Talk this semester was run by Greensboro College’s very own Ms. Sherrie Graham who gave students a background into her life and motivational lessons that can help students through everyday struggles. The motivational lesson was to never judge someone based on appearances. She explained this lesson through two cups. One cup was dirty and the other was clean.

She then asked each student to describe which cup they would pick. Most students chose the clean cup, which revealed to have nothing inside except for dirt and holes. The other cup that was not chosen by many had a $10 bill inside. She explained through this demonstration how easy it was to look past something due to its dissatisfying features.

However, if we truly look deeper into a person or past our own flaws, we can see how much worth one has. Now the fact that Graham is not a professor was new to the way that Prof. Talks were run on campus. Fraizer explained the reasoning behind the change.

“This semester we tried a new thing where we do one talk with a professor and the other talk with a ‘professional’ speaker to give students further exposure than they would have received before. I think this was a success and something we will continue to do moving forward.”

It is not easy to get students to want to participate in these Prof. Talks, Fraizer acknowledges.

“Who would want to take time out of their day to learn about a lesson in a field that might not even relate to them?”

Well, our SHO officers have done a wonderful job of motivating students to not only participate but make more improvements compared to previous Prof. Talks.

“This year we have done way better on attendance and I think we have done a good job at picking professionals and topics that people are actually interested in learning about even if they do not know the professor,” Taylor said about this year’s improvements.

SHO aims to hold at least four Prof. Talks in a school year, two each semester. After talking with the officers, they hope to continue to refine the events to make sure they continue to benefit GC students. Fraizer spoke about improvements she thought could happen with these events.

“Most of the improvements we want to make next semester will occur internally as we are trying to revamp SHO to get more excitement and engagement from students. Externally we want to hold more events with better scheduling that allows more students to come. As well as push that our events are not just for Honors students or members of SHO, but they are open for everyone.”